Hi! Thanks for visiting! This blog is here to be a place to escape to for comfort like visiting a friend for a cozy cup tea on a cold day or putting on your comfy rabbit slippers after a long hard day. We can explore the world together in our hearts, our homes, and around us. Since I like and have several rabbits I would also like to share them with you! I want you to share your world with me too! Thanks for joining us and I hope you come back quite often!

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Wednesday, August 3, 2011

My brother kept remarking on a piece of furniture that my father owned as "The Bunny Bunkbed". My brother enjoys teasing me about my bunnies so he got me thinking.

My father used it to put magazines and other whatnot on it. I thought it was possibly made to be used for dolls for children to play with. I think I would have really liked it when I was a little girl, especially since I had my own bunk beds.

I got the notion, one day, to try it out. The following photos are the results. The rabbits actually seemed to like it.

I do hope you enjoy "The Bunny Bunkbed" as much as we do and, of course, the bunnies.

Welcome back!
Are you ready for more in exploring more of the colonial Samuel Parsons house in Wallingford, Connecticut? I hope you liked Part 1. We are going to take a look at the kitchen today. Looking in here makes me appreciate the chore of cooking and other kitchen chores we have to deal with today. Look at the metal arm in there with the pots and kettles hanging on it. This would swing out when adding or checking ingredients, when serving and swing back depending on how close one would want it close to the fire. The big black metal thing at the bottom was a type of oven for roasting and baking that one would put in towards the fire. One would control the temperatures of cooking by how close something was placed to the fire or smaller hot coals were placed under or near what ever was being cooked.
The brass colored metal lollipop shaped item is a bed warmer. Hot coals would be placed in it and it could be placed in between the covers to warm the bed briefly before someone climbed in. This was usually done for sick people or others who for various reasons would be in

Many different implements which were used with a cooking fireplace.

more need of it.

This fireplace is where most of the cooking was done.

Unusual to have a window like this in the pantry

To the left of the fireplace is a door to the pantry (which you can part of to the left of the fireplace). In this particular pantry are several shelves. For museum purposes they store lots of china, utensils, kitchen tools and other items. They are not necessarily to the period of the house. What is unique about the pantry is that there is also a window in it built in behind the chimney of the kitchen fireplace. The staff have no idea of why that may be. Perhaps you can offer some of your thoughts in the comments section below. What is nice is that it offers light to make it easier to see in the pantry.

Now what about your coffee? Can't whip out the percolator or the drip coffee maker. What the Kreurig coffee and tea maker with the pods. No can do. Do you have an electric coffee bean grinder so you can have the freshest coffee possible? Well as luxurious as that sounds to some people, fresh ground coffee was the only way you could get it in the days before electricity.

But you had to do it by hand!

On the table against the wall are two examples of coffee grinders.

And one more thought on household chores, there were no vacuum cleaners or steam cleaners. Instead one would bring a rug outside, hang it up and beat it with the contraption below called a rug beater. I would hate to be near one of those with my allergies.The rugbeater

Close-up of Coffee Grinder, No Starbucks here!

Now on a terrible note of humor, please don't get upset with me if I say "Beat it!". People often tell me the reason they laugh at my jokes is because they are so bad.
On a more serious note, I really want to thank you for joining me! I do hope you enjoyed this bit of a trip back in history!
Please come back for the further continuation of this short series of posts on the tour of the Samuel Parsons house. Please share with me what you think. The cost for getting in to tour this particular house is nothing. It is based on a donation of what you wish to make. They also have some publications and a few small items for sale inside. All the monies go toward the Wallingford Historical Society and for maintenance of the house.Link to a picture of the house

I hope that you have a wonderful day and that this tour was enjoyable. Check back for the continuation of this series. Please share your comments in the comment section and share this with a friend!
See you soon,
Mary Ellen

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

How excited I am to sharing more of my visit to the Samuel Parsons House in Wallingford, Connecticut! Check here for more information on the architecture and some historical aspects of the house that are beyond my scope of explaining. First of all, before entering the house, here are some things you will notice outside....

Stone mile marker with Roman numerals telling you it is 11 mile to New Haven, CT.

Bullseye Glass in the Windows in windows of the front doors

Pink Granite Stone Steps to step in and out of a horse-drawn carriage.

Bullseye Glass was actually a waste product from the process of how window glass was made in those days. Since yankee ingenuity kept people from letting anything go to waste, it was used decoratively, such as in the front doors here. It still let the light through. Now, bullseye glass is quite sought after for it's decorative looks and because of how the glass was made. You can read this link to learn more about how that glass was made.

The granite set of steps to get in and out of a carriage was something that impressed me. Back when those were made, there may or may not have been sidewalks in town, but the roads were made of dirt. Especially for ladies in their long dresses and skirts with shoes that weren't made with any practicality in mind for the conditions of dust, dirt, rain, this set of steps must have been a godsend!

Inside View of Bullseye Glass

Upon entering the house you can see how the bullseye glass looks from the inside. It helped bring extra light into the house. You walk into a hallway with a central staircase. If you take a right into the first room, you can see the house as it may have looked when it was a tavern. People would take in borders or have food available to serve travelers and provide lodging to bring in extra money. The room may have also served as a tearoom. The colors the room is painted is based on some research at Olde Sturbridge Village and also from layers of paint found during the restoration process to be historically accurate.

Notice the glass in the mirror is not smooth, giving a wavy reflection.

The windows are large to let in lots of light and are made of many small panes holding together smaller pieces of glass. They didn't use larger pieces of glasses due to how easily the glass in colonial days would break and couldn't be made as large as modern day. Wood panes made it much stronger.

Women would keep their work with them handy. One couldn't just run to the store for clothing. In early America, linens such as napkins, tablecloths, bed linens and the like were much more valuable in worth than the furniture of the house. This is due to everything had to be made by hand-the thread from spinning, the cloth from weaving, the clothes from hand sewing.

A Small spinning wheel to spin flax for linen

How a table may have looked to serve the food for lodgers and travelers. It is in the room just adjacent to the kitchen.

Something I find interesting is that tea cups didn't always have handles in Western civilization! If this was explained to me correctly, the tea was poured from cup while it was very hot into the saucer. It would be cooler to drink from the saucer.

Teacup made before they had handles

I will research this and correct this if it's inaccurate.

I will continue with this in my next edition of this! I do try to research things to be accurate. If you find discrepancies or have any other thoughts or comments, please share in the comments section! I am very open to hear what you have to say. I also will correct inaccuracies, if any, as I find them out.

I do thank you for joining me and allowing me to share this with you. Please comment. Also, if you liked this, please share it with others!
Thanks! I hope you have a wonderful day!
Mary Ellen

Monday, August 1, 2011

Hello there,
In these days of unemployment and a tight dollar many people are trying to find interesting things to do right nearby. One can explore types of interesting things in their lives almost as close as their own backyard.
I think this might even take more than one post to share all the stuff I have to share about one visit to a historic house that isn't far from home for me.

Besides how much I want to show you what I found so close to home, I want to show you some of the neat things to discover at this place I visited, that I want to go back and see more. Just like any museum, they do rotate displays, exhibits, and make things "new". There is always something different. On the other hand, you may concentrate on something more during one visit and see something else the next time and potentially other subsequent visits.

Just to give you a quick preview of what I'm going to share in some of my next few posts:Samuel Parsons House

A historic New England House complete with period flag!

Info about the outside and inside......lots of neat stuff

A period baby carriage.

A mile marker sign telling you how far it is to New Haven, CT

How the fire works industry went boom and influenced the layout of a town....

Can't forget the daily grind. This coffee would be ground fresher than Starbucks!

I look forward to sharing some fun experiences with you from here and other places. It is fascinating to think that the things you see in these pictures were part of everyday life to someone.
Sometimes I wonder how people will view some things we own, use or see everyday now when they are looked at and questioned 100 or 200 years
from now. Thank you for sharing your time with me! I will see you soon!